The awful moments in Life are those that threaten us by their suspension of all action. "Just feel what's piling up for you out of all this silence," they seem to say. Breton's trouble now was that he did not know in what direction to move. His relation to Rachel was so nebulous that it could scarcely be called a relation at all. He only knew that she alone was the person for whom now life was worth combating. He had told her in his letter that she could help him, and the absence of an answer spoke now, in this threatening silence, with mighty reverberating voice. "She doesn't care." Well then, who else is there? Almost he could have fancied that his grandmother, there in the Portland Place house, was withdrawing from him all the supports in which he trusted. Now the snow, falling ever more swiftly, ever more stealthily, seemed to be with him in the room, stifling, choking, blinding. He felt that if he could not find company of some kind he would go mad, and so, leaving the storm and the silence behind him in his room, he went to find Lizzie Rand. II Lizzie Rand did not conceal from herself now that she loved him. So long had her emotional life been waiting there, undesired, that now it could be kept by her utterly apart from her daily habit, but it became a flame, a fire, that lighted with its splendid warmth and colour the whole of her accustomed world. She indulged it now without restraint, through the long dark autumn she had it treasured there; she did not, as things then were, ask for more than this splendid knowledge that there was now someone upon whom she loved to spend her care. She had not loved to spend it upon her mother and sister, but that had been a duty defined and necessary. Now everything that she could do for Breton was more fuel to fling to her flame. That further question as to whether he might care for her she kept just in sight, but nevertheless not definite enough to risk the absolute challenge. At least, now, as the weeks passed, he sought her company more and more. She helped him, she cheered and comforted him, enough for her present need. Even, beyond it all, could she survey herself humorously. This the first love affair of her life made her smile at her capture and defeat. "Well, I'm just like the rest--And oh! I'm glad, I'm glad that I am." Finally she knew that there was still a step that might be taken, between them, at any moment. He had, she knew, something to tell her. Again and again lately he had been about to speak and then had caught the impulse back. This too she would not examine too closely, but from the moment that he should demand from her definite concrete assistance, from that moment she would be to him what she knew no one now living could claim to be. Breton was glad when the little maid told him that Mrs. Rand was out, but that Miss Lizzie was at home. He saw her in the warm cosy room, sitting before the fire with her toes on the fender and her skirts pulled up, drying her shoes.